Aguirre wants DDB chief Santiago to head BuCor anew 

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II wants President Rodrigo Duterte to appoint Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) chairman Dionisio Santiago as the next  Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) head.

On Friday, Aguirre said he would ask the President to transfer Santiago, who assumed the DDB leadership only last Monday, to the BuCor following the resignation of BuCor Director General Benjamin delos Santos on Thursday.

Santiago served as chief of the BuCor, which supervises jails intended for persons convicted of crimes, from 2003 to 2004.

"Mas kailangan siya sa BuCor. He is a former director general of BuCor and very knowledgeable with the problem of illegal drugs," Aguirre said of Santiago, a former Armed Forces chief and head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

Aguirre said Delos Santos' resignation letter meanwhile would be forwarded to Malacañang for appropriate action.

He thanked Delos Santos, a retired police official, "for once again serving in the government and we wish him well in all of his future endeavors."

Delos Santos left his post saying reports about the resurgence of the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison had made him "irrelevant."

It was Aguirre who disclosed on July 3 that the illegal drug trade has started to return a year after authorities launched a crackdown on the narcotics ring operating inside the national penitentiary.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is currently looking into the said resurgence. — RSJ/KVD, GMA News